
Alan N. Shapiro
media theory,
science fiction theory,
future design research



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Lost: The Crash Out of Globalization and Into the World
En route from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, California, USA, Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashes on an unknown Island in the South Pacific. This flight that was supposed to circumscribe half of the globe already symbolizes globalization, and the crash of Flight 815 symbolizes the crash of globalization. But the crash into what?
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New York City in Las Vegas
New York New York Las Vegas Casino & Hotel all photos © 2011 Alan Shapiro
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Complementarity: An Archipelago, by Robin Parmar
Robin Parmar is an intermedia artist whose practice incorporates electroacoustic composition, sound installations, improvisation, radiophonics, sonic ecology, poetry, performance art, theory and photography. Works have recently appeared in Ireland, England, Portugal, Germany, Spain and Sweden.
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Three Impressionist Paintings by Florence Morrison
As if Santiago of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea had gone out again for priceless discoveries, but this time with a group of friends. The singularity of this painting is striking, yet it also reminds me of work products from Van Gogh’s period in Arles.
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The Identity and Anxiety of Colonial Dublin in Joyce’s Dubliners, by James Shapiro
“Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears…” This line from ‘The Sisters,’ the first story in James Joyce’s Dubliners, establishes from the outset a central theme of the collection.
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Morality in Europe Today
“Morality in Europe today,” wrote Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil, “is herd animal morality.” On April 22, 2010, there took place an extraordinary creative event in Dusseldorf, Germany – at the KIT (Kunst im Tunnel) art space – called “Morality in Europe Today” (Zeitgenössische Moralvorstellung in Europe).
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Questioning Steven Hawking’s Scientific Discourse, by Marc Silver and Simon Schaffer
Most of this text is an interview-conversation between Professor Marc Silver of the University of Modena and Professor Simon Schaffer of Cambridge University that took place in Cambridge, UK in November 1995. It was originally published in Marc Silver’s book Arguing the Case: Language and Play in Argumentation.
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Claude Lefort, Political Philosopher, by Alan N. Shapiro
Politics as it is practiced in America is obsolete. It is a simulation of democracy. It seems to have very little to do with democracy any more. How do we get back to (or, more accurately, move forward to) being a real democracy? Here’s my answer: By understanding the lifework of Claude Lefort.
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Today is a Sacred Day
As a New York Jets fans, today is a sacred day. An inspiring day in my life was January 12, 1969. Super Bowl III. I was 12 years old. My brother and I watched the game on a small black-and-white TV. We saw the Jets, who were 19 point underdogs, beat the mighty Baltimore Colts.
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Conference on Quantum Culture in Venice
After the conference on Digital Culture in Milan, I arrived in Venice. I took the Vaporetto number 2 towards my hotel. I meditated about how I have had enough of conferences about Digital Culture. During this Vaporetto ride, the answer dawns on me: we need to develop the paradigm of Quantum Culture.
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Learning to Love Androids: The Wondrous World of the Universal Scholar Alan Shapiro, by Florian Fricke
Learning to Love Androids: The Wondrous World of the Universal Scholar Alan N. Shapiro by Florian Fricke translated from the German by Lenny “Nails” Dykstra Bayerischer Rundfunk Radio, ZÜNDFUNK Broadcast: June 13, 2010, 22:05 – 23:00 The American Alan N. Shapiro is a technologist and futurist, on the basis of philosophy and sociology.
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Baudrillard, Globalization and Terrorism, by Douglas Kellner
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent Terror War, Jean Baudrillard has written a series of reflections on the contemporary moment that have evoked the excitement and controversy of his earlier work. For many years, Baudrillard had complained that the contemporary era has been one of “weak events.”
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Baudrillard und Trek-nologie, von Alan N. Shapiro
Beginnen wir mit dem Ende der sechziger Jahre in New York, dem Ort meiner Kindheit. Als guter Jude sollte ich eine jüdische Erziehung bekommen. Stattdessen liebte ich Star Trek. Alles, was ich weiß, habe ich von Star Trek gelernt. Unter anderem auch, die Naturwissenschaften zu lieben. Das machte mich zu einem guten Amerikaner.
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Star Trek: How the New Comes into the World
Most scientists, academics, and journalists who write about Star Trek claim to be fans and lovers of the various Starfleet Captains and their crews. But their customary methodologies function to deny to Star Trek its true originality as the creator of a reality-shaping “science fiction” that formatively influences culture, ideas, technologies, and even “hard sciences.”
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Star Trek: 20 Basic Principles
Star Trek Basic Principle #1: Radical Uncertainty Captain’s Log, Supplemental: “We are seeing things that cannot possibly exist, yet they are undeniably real.” In its indeterminacy and paradox, the object discovers us. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle holds that the degrees of my knowing the position and speed of quantum particles are inversely proportional to each other.
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